Jeremy King, the restaurateur who has long shaped London’s dining scene, once said that when there wasn’t a back story to his restaurants (such as The Ivy or Le Caprice), he would simply invent one. For People’s, there’s no such need. The invite-only bar and club, founded last year in New York by King’s daughter Margot Hauer-King and Emmet McDermott, has revitalized a Greenwich Village townhouse (formerly the site of the fabled Downtown Gallery) into a modern salon steeped in glamour and intrigue. With its copper furnishings, crackling fires, and carefully curated guestlists, the space pays homage to its history while also creating something entirely new.
This January, however, People’s is honoring a different kind of legacy, hosting a pop-up dedicated to King and featuring a handful of the signature dishes that made his London restaurants so iconic. The dishes on the simple three-item menu—Scandinavian frozen berries, bang bang chicken, and a classic martini—are not just classics from King institutions, but tell nostalgic stories of characters from London’s past.
Jeremy King with his daughter, Margot Hauer-King, at her club People’s.
Photo: Courtesy of Jeremy King
“When Margot wanted to have a cold dish, but a simple dish which was very representative of that period, it was an obvious choice,” King said of the chicken, whose inspiration was born, of all places, from an underwhelming Chinese meal he ate in Earl’s Court. The frozen berries, meanwhile, had more regal roots, being served at the Serpentine Gallery on the day Princess Diana wore her revenge dress. (There, they were drenched in white chocolate.) And the King Martini—cucumber with a twist—needs little explanation.
Celebrities from Mick Jagger to Kate Moss to Andy Warhol have graced the draped tablecloth, rattan chair-lined haunts of Jeremy King’s empire. Lucian Freud was known to eat at The Wolseley six nights a week. Photographs of Princess Diana leaving Le Caprice have become synonymous with her public, paparazzi-captured image. And Stephen Fry spearheaded the group of A-listers who refused to visit the latter institution after it changed hands, forcing King’s business into administration.
Little over a year into its tenure, People’s has inherited a similar kind of buzz—although it keeps the identities of its celebrity visitors a little more discreet. That said, their favorite guest, McDermott tells me, is Patricia Clarkson, who often drops in for a glass of Sancerre. “She lives on the block, she’s an absolute hoot,” Hauer-King adds. “Patricia embodies a few things we’ve always wanted—she’s there at 5 p.m. for a quiet catch-up, and she’s there at 11 p.m. when the music is loud.”